Chapter Text
"Sometimes you can tell a person's fate by the first flowers they choke out and the stems that follow." Mona turns to watch her master pick up a lone aster that hangs limply from a vase used as a paper weight as she adjusts the textbooks in her arms.
Mona follows the older woman as she places down books in Mona's personal bookshelf that was used to store her texts used for studying, right on top of her current assignment. The young astrologist huffs in annoyance but prepares to soak in everything and anything that may spill from her Mentor's mouth. "Choke out…? Isn't the Hanahaki disease only found in Inazuma?"
The old mage chuckles as she quickly turns around to note down a particular constellation in one of the many journals she has lying around, before bouncing back up to look at her pupil. "Only the variant that turns your body into a plant; think of very elaborate hedge shaping but with flowers; which has died on its own centuries back but otherwise Hanahaki is not only found in Inazuma, actually there was a spike in Natlan a couple years back! Another spike is fated to happen either in Mondstadt or Khaenri'ah in maybe… ten years time! A shame really, it's gonna work up all those boring historians who'll start crying wolf about rebuilding Khaenri'ah." Her master taunts the imaginary people in the room before patting the books on top of Mona's assignment. "I like how quickly you caught on, I usually have to lead other students there. I want you to review the meanings of flowers, you don't have to memorize all of them but the most common, especially roses."
Mona raises a brow skeptically. She quickly picks up the books and skims through the one on top, pictures and meanings of each flora including the variations of meanings behind certain colors, she shuts the book and looks up at the expert who spins around her office wiping off dust from random stuff and skillfully manipulating all her equipment with little effort. "What of my assignment on-?"
The lady lifts a finger to her lips effectively shushing the young hydro user, she motions for the girl to sit, so Mona does. "Do you know why some people infected with Hanahaki disease cough out stems?"
"Because the flower bud that develops in them continues to develop into full flowers the longer they go without confession or removing them; will go as far as to reproduce asexually thus the need for a stem with roots." She murmurs loud enough for her master to hear across the room.
The woman claps joyfully. "Yes! Now, what kind of stems do these tend to be?"
Mona lightly shrugs. "I'm not… quite sure. I assume it would be the stem specific to the flower a Hanahaki infected person may… release." Her master nods slowly.
"That's correct. Somewhat. Most of the time, it would be, if you're puking out roses the stems you cough out will belong to roses— thorns and all, same with all other flowers like Sunflower and silk flowers. However there's another stem one may vomit as well." She reaches over to her desk and picks up a translucent flower, its tips frosted with white and its stems a pastel green.
"There's a story from during the cataclysm. Where the Cryo Archon before becoming an archon, fell in love with another being, a once powerful mortal whose mortality was still a danger to themselves, as a way to get the upper hand against the Archons during the cataclysm, one of the old gods who survived the archon wars: Hybris, killed the mortal, and when the Cryo Archon heard of their death they ran all the way to their love, and poetically enough, Hybris killed her lover on a hill surrounded by young ancient mist flowers when everything else was crumbling around them; the Cryo Archon on her way to her lover stained these flowers with the blood from the cuts she received from running through them and after reaching the conclusion that her lover was dead she released an incredibly deadly explosion of cryo energy that killed Hybris and most of the other people not in her alliance— freezing the mist flowers into this glassy thin creation. That's why these flowers are so cold and fragile looking but consuming one seed from this would kill you while the liquids in the stem would heal everything it touches, which helps looking at the flat bladed thorns these flora have." As if to prove her point, the old lady sliced her finger and proceeded to gently squeeze out a cloudy white liquid from the plant. Once said liquid dropped onto her finger it began to shimmer and the cut, along with the blood, was completely gone.
The older woman looked back at her student, a young first year in junior high with immense potential and a lot of potential humor and entertainment judging from the small curious looks into her pupil's future she took. Mona raises her hand.
"So then the stem of that flower is for a specific case, what does it mean then?"
"Well, it means that your love would be something you'll suffer for that person, and if it really came down to it you would end the world if it so much as took them from you. Generally though, it means that both parties are idiots, hence how translucent it is."
Mona sputters in response, unable to really understand what that implied. "The one special exception is that you're oblivious??"
Her master nodded, an amused smile on her face. "Yep! Bumbling idiots, dense and stupid, like mices forcing themselves to run in their little circle forever; at the end they'll just tire themselves out and crash into each other."
What an odd comparison, the young astrologist thinks. "What kind of idiot would fall victim to a glass flower." she mutters to herself, but of course, her master hears her from across the room.
"Yeah," The older woman tilts her head to look at Mona knowingly. "I wonder what kind of idiot would let themselves be affected by The Cryo Archon's Grief."
'So I'm that kind of idiot.' Mona bitterly muses.
The dark shades of lavender that colored the rose petals at the bottom of her sink were beautiful, each petal contrasting against the red speckles that decorated them but the pasty sickly green stems that now lay on top of the petals sends enough shock through Mona's body that she simply sinks to the floor in disbelief. She holds her throat and mouth, the recently sharp and grating pain from hurling the rose petals and stems were now healing, she could feel the light cryo energy tingle in her throat and lungs spreading even more chills throughout her body.
Lavender colored roses are supposed to represent infatuation at first sight to express adoration and fascination, in its darker shades it's meant to hint at a sense of majesty and regal splendor. The petals of this one was a gradient, from the tip that would connect to the rose bud was a pretty lavender that smoothly transitioned to its regal shade of purple, sweet and soft in the center. If the rose was whole it would be hard to notice with the royal dark shade of lavender catching anyone's attention, unless you took the time to appreciate the rose from it's dark and showy shade to it's soft lavender in its center; much like the person whom was responsible for this disease.
How dare such a wonderful person be born, how dare they ever cross paths and become close, how dare Mona be so stupid to like her the moment they met then continue down the damning path pretending she was unaffected by the charms of such a dorky person.
Mona clutches her throat as another stem makes it up, tears threaten to spill out, her throat is freezing and cold to the touch while the rest of her body burns hot with pain. Right… the stems. She unsteadily forces herself back up with a white-knuckle grip on the stained sink, and her mirror reveals a teary twenty-two year old with cheap running eyeliner she forgot to remove and red eyes on top of her unusually pale skin and bloody stains on her lips and teeth. She leans over the sink for a final time, preparing herself for the unpleasant sensation she's about to experience again, then Mona pukes out more lavender rose petals and the final cursed stem along with gross bits of what she was positive were the insides of her throat scarred by the wide thorns on its stem.
It's been exactly four months since Mona contracted Hanahaki disease, before then she was well aware of her affections for a certain archer, always allowing herself to be a companion for the blonde whenever she needed and looking forward to her slips and flustered shrieks and laughter and sighs and her dorky smile and beautiful way she smiles with her visible eye (the days where she reveals both of them just for Mona are enough for her to stupidly drop everything to be with her) and just… Fischl, she's already been aware of these feelings. She wasn't dense, but then one day she considered what would happen if she did confess everything to Fischl; she didn't entertain the idea any further, she didn't want the potential of ruining their current and future relationship and she refused to actually look into the future for a hint, it went against her vows as an Astrologist (Mona was afraid that she never even stood a chance, she didn't want to see such truth if it existed)!
The same day she returned home after meeting up with Kazuha, Paimon and Lumine, Xinyan, and Fischl, she coughed out a single rose petal.
Then a couple more the next day and for the rest of that week and the frequency increased. The next month the quantity of each frequency increased little by little but especially became harder to suppress around Fischl.
A similar growth continued until now. The time on her phone glares: 1:09 AM. She wakes up in a state of slight suffocation and rushes to the bathroom to release the unrequited affection, then she chokes; out comes bloody petals and that sickening stem she spent days plunging her old academy's libraries for any mention of the cursed flower the stem came from to gauge at what it could mean for those infected with Hanahaki. Its meaning still evaded her, but as of right now it meant deathly cold evading her trachea in an attempt to heal the insides of her windpipe that was scraped out when coming up and sliced when it agonizingly twisted in her attempts to breathe. It's over now.
For now, anyway.
The sound of Fischl's voice steals her attention from pitying the depressing reflection in her mirror, Mona looks down at her phone that threatens to fall off the side of her sink. It was her wake up alarm, with the Fischl voice pack that Ayato jokingly bought for her and changed all her alarms to, she never did change the morning one, huh…
1:30. It's been that long already? Why the hell did she have an alarm set for that early?
Right on cue, her phone lit up with notifications from discord, specifically Ayato and Diluc's usernames. Fighting back the urge to gag, she opens the chat and is immediately met with a call from the server.
She answers reluctantly. "What."
"Wow, you sound terrible. Are you okay to even talk?" Ayato sounds way too awake, Dulic hums in agreement.
Diluc's voice is deeper than usual, probably just woke up, Mona doesn't need to use hydromancy to know that their chats would collectively thirst over it. "He's right, Megistus. Did something happen? Are you sick? Are you fit to stream?" He asks worriedly.
She rolls her eyes. "Yes, yes, I'm fine to stream. Just had an unpleasant wake up call to Ayato's voice."
Ayato feigns an insulted gasp, seriously where was he getting this energy from, or was it just because Mona could've literally passed out from blood loss not even a minute ago. "Does Fischl's voice pack not make up for having to endure my amazing voice?" he teasingly asks, she scoffs.
"I changed those alarms, thank you very much." A partial truth. Before Dulic can speak she continues. "I'm fine to stream, just let me get something to hydrate my throat before we go live."
For a moment the call is silent. A silence with worry from her fellow vtubers.
"Okay," Dulic breaks the silence. "but if at anytime you feel that you need to take a break or leave, we can distract everyone."
Ayato jumps in after him, his inner big brother instincts encouraging his next words. "Plus if you need to outright stop streaming I'll just initiate my infamous 'you lose, you stop streaming for the day' challenge and you just have to not try without chat getting suspicious."
"I-" Mona sighs, albeit thankfully. "Thanks. I told you not to worry, I'm alright." She tries to convince, whether herself or them is a bit unclear to herself.
Ayato hums. "Alright then, the stream starts at two. Oz doesn't want the loading screen to be longer than ten minutes. I'm gonna get myself something to eat real quick, I'll see you two when we start."
"See you two in a bit." Dulic said finally.
"See ya." With that the two leave, and Mona is left alone with her turned off phone and flora vomit in her sink.
Oh, she was not looking forward to this stream.
Mona leaves her bathroom, with the stems in hand, she'll clean the rest of that later right now she needs to remember how to extract the fluids from these wretched stems.
Why in the world did she agree to play that damn bishojo game.
The stinging in her throat makes her hurry back to her small kitchen, the cold fleeing and being replaced with pain and the urge to vomit excess blood after the numbing feeling went away.
She swallows down vomit. Mona thought she was better at keeping herself together.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Fate was truly cruel to her, and her specifically.
Ayato could be heard laughing his head off, his vtuber model leaning to it's side with a permanent grin on it. There's dry laughter as the Hydro user gasps for breath, next to his model the other vtuber she was streaming with; Aiden aka Dulic is simply leaning his head to the side, his model's eyes were closed, likely to reflect the closed eyes of the man behind the model. This position was known as Aiden Faded. Otherwise meaning: Aiden was silently cringing and becoming the embodiment of "press f to pay respect."
When Ayato comes to, his model: Marquis is brought back to life, his smile large and smug. "We play a three player dating sim, you're the one lucky person here that gets to get a bonus ability roll and you get the ONE draw back? Out of sixty possible bonuses you get Hanahaki??" On her other monitor, next to her stream deck, chat is zooming with f's, LOL's and lmao's, and her "dead nyx" emotes.
Aiden sighs understandingly. "That truly is unfortunate, Nyx. What's the chance that you're the one who gets infected by Hanahaki?" Mona's lips form a straight line, clearly unamused by the pulled ability and the question.
Yes, what are the chances that someone with a bad case of Hanahaki would receive the Hanahaki ability that gave the player who pulled it a two percent chance to get infected themselves and a sixty-seven percent chance to infect a random love interest(even if it's not the one they pursue or chose).
"Two percent chance that I get infected myself, how terrible." She bitterly answers.
Marquis nods. "Well, getting the Hanahaki card was less than a one percent chance in itself so…"
She pressed space to continue on pass the screen that straight up taunted her. Mona changed her model's expression to be annoyed, area around her eyes darkening while her eyes themselves glared. "Well then, pretty boy, I thought you were going to be the voice for our wonderful narrator. Start speaking before I take your ability to do so." she hisses out.
Marquis rolls his eyes before smiling and clearing his throat. "Yeesh, I didn't think working with royalty would make you have a stick up in there, Nyx."
Aiden tilts his head in confusion. "Aren't you royalty, Marquis?" The selkie prince doesn't acknowledge the semi-demon doctor as he reads the narrator's text box.
" The three brothers: Aiden, Marquis, and Nyx are doomed– oh shit already a bad sign." he laughs and continues on reading after noticing the blank expressions on his fellow vtubers. "You two are boring, anyway… are doomed to be the hosts of the big three ancient gods who held tyrant rule over all of mortal kind: Hades, Zeus, and Poseidon. Of course, being weak children since birth— that's harsh—" Mona tunes him out when she feels the flowery bile stir in her lungs, she mutes herself and tries her best to keep a calm expression. Desperately, she grabs the glass of cloudy liquid and internally prays that it would stop her from choking on stream. "although the original prophet who had told them their future had passed before he could explain what they should do to 'save the day', the old lady who had given them their acceptance letters to the most esteemed university of Athens. The old lady told them that the only way, other than just dying. Ehh? was to fall in love so deeply that the gods will deem you too weak to host their bodies even though the three brothers are the only ones capable of hosting the godly brother trio." He changes the screen to the next screen, and Marquis barely holds back his amusement as he mutters Aiden's name.
Aiden grumbles. "So… we're really listening to that random woman? I very much disagree with the notion that being in love makes you weak by the way. Don't you agree, Nyx?" That catches her by surprise.
Love makes you weak? Mona sure felt that way, pathetic and ridiculous but nonetheless… glad that she wasn't just shoving her face in those ridiculously expensive textbooks of hers and studying even more costly trinkets and gadgets; after all if it were not for Fischl wanting to see how vtubing worked and requesting her help during a time where she would've certainly burnt herself out, she never would've found out she enjoyed such activities, archons… she wouldn't even be on this stream if it weren't for Fischl barging into her RA dorm and dragging her out to try this new thing after excitedly ranting. In hindsight, maybe Mona should've known she was too easy to convince if it was Fischl convincing her.
"Nyx?"
"Oh my~ she's probably flirting with Queenie as we speak, why else would she mute herself?"
She unmutes herself and then proceeds to ignore Marquis' comment in retaliation. "I think being in love makes you vulnerable, it means all that vulnerability is shown only to that one person— or multiple, polygamous relationships exist— leaving you invulnerable to everything else. Sure, you'll still get hurt and sick as usual, but isn't it that much easier to bear when the person you love is there? Like the weakness wasn't there in the first place? To laugh together till the pain is numbed out by breathless affection or sleep away aches and other pains in their embrace… " The dreamy sigh that follows was completely not in character, definitely not on purpose, but the way chat was reacting positively to her yearning was surely going to increase interaction and the such; she could totally play this off. Wait, where did that come from? "Oh my archons, I'm around Fischl too much."
"Ew, being in love? Cringe."
"Ew, still flirting with your friend since middle school but failing so spectacularly they think you're affectionately bullying them in a platonic sense? Cringe." She goes for his throat, it seems like the two has the same idea when both of their models switch to their annoyed expressions.
"Ooo~ You going to tell me that people who're Aries are going to hell, Zodiac Girl? Wanna tell us our love compatibility?" Marquis quips. Before either pair could continue Aiden is already skipping the text he had just read.
"Don't worry chat, it's just brothers bickering, they'll stop when they realize they're both single and incapable of being the ones to initiate anything romantic. There was a reason our Manager Paimon suggested we play Brother's Bachelor Survival Plan." The two with him gap in surprise; that's the moment chat realized who was definitely the older brother here.
So as to acknowledge it— at least in Mona's chat— they spam kings, crowns, and girlbosses.
"Oh shit- we're aristocrats?" Marquis model becomes soulless once again when Ayato wheezes and Mona has hold back from audibly groaning. What a start to a five hour stream